debbie loane | the peace of wild things

I was artist in residence on the Rahoy Hills Reserve, spending initially one month from mid-August 2022 to mid-September 2022 and then a further ten days in late March 2023. 

Not being familiar with this part of Scotland made it the perfect opportunity for me as an artist to approach this place with an open mindedness and curiosity that might not otherwise have been possible.

I walked every day, sometimes a predetermined route; other times just meandering in a small area but looking closer. On other occasions I accompanied Steve Hardy from the reserve on one of his regular surveys. On occasions, the walking took me high on the hillsides following cow tracks until they became deer tracks, eventually disappearing altogether on the summits. Other times I ventured into the thick and abundant greenery of the ‘Exclosures’ along the banks of Loch Arienas. I was initially apprehensive navigating the pathless terrain on my own but, ultimately, I loved the exhilaration of being alone in a place.

There were times where the terrain was slow and difficult; the ‘Exclosures’ (fenced off areas around the loch side to keep the deer out) were steep and treacherous and at times I was angry and frustrated at not being able to move for bracken, moss-covered boulders and fallen branches from the sessile oak woodland. This beautiful rich habitat was certainly a place not dominated by humans. 

For me, the act of walking through the landscape has become an important element of my practice. I rarely stop and make ‘paintings’ on the spot, preferring the sensory experience of being in place, moving through the landscape and seeing it as a totally immersive experience. Although I do work in sketchbooks, my engagement with my surroundings can take many forms; writing and collecting colour from place, fashioning tools from found objects, writing and collecting naturally occurring pigments. All of these activities help me to ‘tune in’ to a new landscape and explore all of its possibilities beyond the fixed gaze of the camera lens or viewfinder.  I collect these found pigments in small pots and store them until I need them. Lifting the lid on these pots is to unleash the essence of the place. These found pigments, together with the handmade tools and brushes, and the written descriptions of places visited, are then later transformed into paintings in an act that has an increasingly performative element to it. Working with these materials transports me back to the places they came from and enables me to evoke these places in my works. 

The resulting paintings in this show contain charcoal remnants from a campfire at Arienas, peat from eroded peat beds high up near the foot of Beinn Laiden, Lochaline Silica - the purest whitest sand - and deer dung to name but a few. Some of these materials, which I worked with on the reserve at Rahoy, have been millions of years in the forming and have been transformed by the elements. Others have passed through the gut of an animal. My interaction with them is merely another stage on their long journey through time.

I came to the Rahoy artists residency seeking solitude and time away from a busy life of juggling motherhood, work and creativity and to re-evaluate my place as a creative person in a bewilderingly post - covid reality. Currently, we seem to be turning our backs on the promises we were beginning to make to address the climate emergency in pursuit of more short-term goals. I relished the solitude I found in Rahoy but found the freedom dizzying at times. My time in Morvern gave me really valuable peace and space, which I will treasure; something best summed up in the words of the poem by the American poet Wendell Berry in his poem The Peace of Wild Things.

Debbie Loane, 2023